Work Trip to Europe - Day 1 (Part 1 of 2)

This is my first international work trip, as we have been working on a multi-year M&A project to integrate a small EU/UK cheese company that we purchased.  When flying internationally, per company policy, we can fly Business Class.  This was certainly new to me and I felt like a rookie, not knowing what to do with this huge stack of stuff that was in my seat when I showed up.  Do I keep this stuff or just use it on the flight or do they just charge me for what I use...in the end I just tried to act like I belonged.  The plan was to leave Denver on Saturday and then I would arrive in Dublin about mid-morning.

In order to deal with the jet lag, I had read a bunch of articles that said the best way to go East is to try to go to sleep as soon as you can and avoid the dinner.  This is made a bit easier with the lay-flat seats that you have.  Then, around morning time for Dublin, you get up and eat a nice breakfast.  So that's what I did and in Business Class you actually get this really nice quality breakfast with metal silverware and everything.

This is a picture of Dublin from the air as we finally circled around to land.  Once on the ground, I slowly made it through customs and my main contact had arranged for a driver (Fintan) to pick me up and take me to my hotel room in Dublin.  For the record, Fintan looked EXACTLY as I had imagined an older Irishman driver would look like.  He was great!